A Light in the Dark

Grace Fryer has a good job painting the luminous material on watch hands so they glow in the dark. But like many of the young women she works with, she's not feeling very well of late. In fact, most of the girls in the New Jersey factory are anemic, or suffering from strange jawbone abscesses. Could it be the radium they daub on those watch hands that's making them ill? The factory boss assures them it's safe -- look at Madame Curie, after all. She discovered the many benefits of radium after working with the substance at length, and she's healthy. But Grace will not be dissuaded from her belief that her job is killing her and all her friends. D.W. Gregory's drama Radium Girls explores the true story of the women who died for a wage, and who fought those conditions so the deaths ended with them. Saint Louis University Theatre presents Radium Girls at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (November 9 through 17) and 2 p.m. Sunday, November 18, in Xavier Hall on the SLU campus (3733 West Pine Mall; 314-977-3327). Tickets are $7 to $10.
Fridays, Saturdays; Sun., Nov. 18. Starts: Nov. 9. Continues through Nov. 17, 2012